he feds investigate Cybercab, Uber cuts more jobs and robotaxis go live in London. LegalRideshare breaks it down. FEDS INVESTIGATE CYBERCAB Press enter or click to view image in full size The feds are investing the Cybercab. TechCrunch reported: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced Friday morning that it opened the probe mere hours after Tesla put the first Cybercabs on the streets of Austin, Texas. Federal vehicle safety regulations require manual controls like brake pedals, though the Department of Transportation recently proposed removing those requirements for vehicles that are designed to be autonomously driven. “NHTSA fully supports the safe development and deployment of automated vehicles. But as the federal regulator, we need to ensure that all of our laws are followed,” administrator Jonathan Morrison said in a statement. “Our approach of balancing innovation with safety oversight will allow the United States to maintain its global leadership in AV innovation.” In the filing, the agency said it was opening the investigation to “examine the process and technical data on which Tesla relied when certifying the Cybercab and related issues.” NHTSA said it will consider the extent to which the company's certification depended on determinations that certain federal motor standards are inapplicable to the Cybercab. UBER CUTS 3,300 JOBS Press enter or click to view image in full size Uber is cutting jobs. Bloomberg reported: Uber Technologies Inc. is cutting about 3,300 roles, or 10% of its staff globally, in a massive restructuring aimed at reducing management layers and reallocating spending into its ride-sharing, delivery and robotaxi businesses. Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi announced the changes in an email obtained by Bloomberg News, saying that Uber's growth in recent years has created “more layers, more coordination, more fragmented ownership, and in some cases structures that made sense when businesses were smaller but no longer serve us well at our current scale.” The cuts will reduce the number of managers in the company by 20%, with some being moved to the role of an individual contributor, an Uber spokesperson said. The company didn't disclose what percentage of managers would be laid off, however. The cuts also apply to people who aren't managers. To make Uber “simpler and faster,” it is reducing nearly half the number of teams that only have one or two members and paring back the number of employees who sit more than seven layers down from the CEO, Khosrowshahi said. The company is also streamlining its core engineering, science and delivery groups, including combining its three operations teams for restaurants, retail and its white-label delivery service. UBER LAUNCHES ROBOTAXIS IN LONDON Uber's robotaxis go live in London. So how did it go? Bloomberg reported: On a rainy morning in Westminster this week, Bloomberg took a test drive in one of the Wayve-powered robotaxis. After hailing the car via the Uber app, andcut jobs sitting through a brief introduction from the safety driver, a tap of the “start trip” button on the central console prompted the vehicle to pull away from the curb. Over roughly 40 minutes, the car showed human-like nudging behavior to cut into a line of bumper-to-bumper traffic, handled tight lane changes, a protest in Parliament Square and pedestrians stepping out erratically into the road. The safety driver took over twice. Once when the vehicle was trying to merge into gridlock and was briefly blocking oncoming traffic, and again to switch lanes to get around a few stationary cars. The rest of the time, his hands hovered just below the steering wheel as it turned on its own. Wayve and other robotaxi providers will need to secure additional approvals from government agencies before they can operate vehicles with no driver aboard and ferry passengers in them. That includes safety audits by the UK's Vehicle Certification Agency, a passenger service permit from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) and consent from Transport for London (TfL). About LegalRideshare LegalRideshare LLC, based in Chicago, is the first law firm in the United States dedicated exclusively to rideshare accident, injury, and insurance claims. The firm represents individuals injured in rideshare and, increasingly, autonomous vehicle incidents, and advocates for stronger safety standards across the rideshare and AV industries. For more information, contact Bryant Greening at 312–670–9000 or bryant@legalrideshare.com.
